Welcome to the forums as well. Ben makes a good point above. I remember when SolidWorks first became to big for CDs and everyone needed to get DVDs to install or wait for the downloads. SolidWorks provides the

Another thing to keep in mind is SolidWorks 2007 looks and behaves/disobeys in a much different manner than 2013.

Here's a Screenshot I took when 2008 was released to highlight a few of the differences in the General UI pop-up Context Menu and new Shortcut Bar which can be customized per application.

It gives you a way to save your favorite icons for Sketch, Part, Assembly and Drawings. You can even add Extrusion or Sheetmetal commands in your Sketcher Shortcut Bar and use them to create your features from within the sketch. The command manager is a lot better now than it was in 2007 or earlier. You can quickly swap between the Named Tabs or use Customize Command Manager option to add your own Command Manager ToolGroup. The only drawback is if you close the Command Manager toolbars get displayed for all Command Manager tabs. If you closed command manager for the image below a Features Sketch Surfaces Evaluate tab would appear.

He'll have a lot of reading of the What's New files to get back upto speed. There will be things you'll like, hate or eventually get used to.

Many Companies do not pay subscription because they leave a few years between upgrades due to version differences between companies and because they often buy it at a late Release Cycle so they get the SP 4 or 5 versions with bugfixes. SolidWorks used to charge a $500-$750 penalty in addition to the Support Pricing but that may have changed since then.

Check with your VAR for exact costs. It may even end up being cheaper to buy the software again.Also you'll need to get the additional 8 alpha numerics that Solidworks added to His Serial Number starting with the 2008 release the 16 digit first portion will be the same but make sure you he gets the full 24 char Serial Number from his Solidworks Reseller.

My company currently uses Solidworks 2008 but we are getting upgraded to 2013 next week (in fact the DVD is sat ready to go but we're waiting for the new PCs to arrive as well). Does anyone have any suggested guides to prepare me for using the new version? Are the What's New documents available on the web anywhere?